[ Stay Home & Enjoy K-Culture Contest ]

The Korean Cultural Center to Belgium and the European Union organized a video contest ‘Stay Home & Enjoy K-Culture Contest’ in which the participants had to show how they enjoy Korean culture from home. The contest ran from May 18 until July 6 and a total of 33 locals participated.

The 5 winners were chosen after a rigorous screening process that took into account various aspects such as the number of likes on the Instagram and Facebook page of the KCC, originality, quality of the content and the way it promoted Korean Culture.

The first prize was won by Nic Depaepe, a university student, whose daily life is filled with Korean culture. He enjoys to study Korean, cook Korean dishes such as tteokbeokki and kimbap, and loves Korean music and movies. He also showed beautiful K-pop fan art that he made.

The second prize went to Leslie Maes, who made a video about how Korean culture is enjoyed by his entire family during the lockdown. From his wife who cooks Korean food, he himself who studies Korean, a daughter who practices taekwondo, another daughter who imitates the choreography of Momoland's "Bboom Bboom," to a son who plays soccer while wearing a Red Devil shirt.

The third place went to two participants, Aileen Gamba and Alix De Jonge. Aylin Gamba showed her cooking skills by making a very tasty looking Japchae. Alix De Jonge made an original video in which she celebrated the Korean mountainous landscape. She did so by blending a video of Korean mountain landscapes using Google Street view with a video of herself creating a mountainous landscape painting that is inspired by traditional Korean art.

The Popularity award went to Haga Masae, who received the biggest response on the social networks (Facebook and Instagram) of the KCC.

The topics of the received videos were very broad and included Hangul, Korean cuisine, K-pop, K-beauty, Pansori, Taekwondo etc., which shows that locals enjoyed daily a large variety of Korean culture during the lockdown.

This is confirmed by kim Jae-hwan, the director of the KCC. "We have confirmed through this contest that a Korean culture is widely loved in Belgium. Korean culture has become a part of the daily enjoyed culture by locals."

For those who are curious about the videos of the participants, all the videos are available to see on the social media pages (Facebook, Instagram and Youtube) of the Korean Cultural Center in Brussels.